There are a number of different applications where it is important to measure a precise amount of liquid for subsequent dispensing. For example and one of the most common applications that most encounter every day is the art of cooking. Generally speaking, cooking is the process of preparing food by applying heat, selecting, measuring and combining ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing tasty, edible food. The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor, appearance, texture, or digestibility of food. The ingredients used to make a dish (food) can be either solid, such as wheat, or can be liquid.
In yet another common application, the measuring and dispensing of an amount of liquid is also important in the beverage and bar business where certain cocktails call for certain amounts of spirits that are in effect ingredients of the cocktail. For example, a “seabreeze” cocktail is created by measuring an amount of vodka and adding it to an amount of cranberry juice. There are hundreds of different types of cocktails that each requires different amounts of liquids (spirits) to be measured and combined.
In both of these environments and other similar environments, the most common traditional manner of measuring an amount of liquid and then dispensing it is to use a measuring cup. However, this can be a time consuming task since it requires the use of a measuring cup that has gradations relating to different volume measurements of liquid (i.e., ¼ cup, ½ cup, etc.). The manner of measuring the liquid can be imprecise in that the user pours liquid from the base stock container into the measuring cup until the meniscus of the liquid reaches the target gradation. As most will be familiar with, it is difficult to precisely obtain the target amount of liquid since a pour or successive pours from the stock container often results in either too little or too great an amount of liquid being transferred into the measuring cup. This imprecise process can lead to waste and at the very least is a time consuming, menial task that reduces the grandeur of cooking.